Vingegaard’s wife Trine speaks out after Tour de France crash: ‘What can he handle mentally?’

Jonas Vingegaard has been firmly in the media spotlight in recent days. The Danish Visma | Lease a Bike rider spoke publicly after being forced to abandon Stage 15 of the Tour de France following a crash that left him with a broken collarbone. During his recovery, Vingegaard found time to visit the Tour of Denmark and give an extensive interview to TV2. Danish outlet Feltet has now also spoken to his wife, Trine.

Vingegaard’s closest confidante had largely remained quiet this year after receiving plenty of attention—and criticism—last season following an interview about her husband’s role within Visma | Lease a Bike. Following Vingegaard’s painful withdrawal from the Tour de France, however, she decided that she wanted to say something.

The Vingegaard family has already had a great deal to process, particularly since Jonas’s career took off with overall victories at the Tour in 2022 and 2023. His serious crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, when Vingegaard briefly feared for his life, was the biggest blow. The consequences were also considerable, including a long rehabilitation period, lost preparation time and an increased deficit to Tadej Pogačar.

That made Vingegaard’s withdrawal from this year’s Tour even more disappointing, especially because he believed he had entered the race in better condition than ever. Despite that confidence, he was already critical of his season planning during his TV2 interview. Racing and winning the Giro d’Italia in May helped make the Dane exceptionally strong on the longer climbs, but it also appeared to leave him short of the explosiveness required to match Pogačar during the Tour’s sharper accelerations.

The crash involving their father and husband naturally came as a major shock inside the Vingegaard household. To protect their daughter Frida, however, Trine immediately changed the channel. “I switched to another channel so Frida wouldn’t have to watch it,” she explained. “They often continue showing a situation like that for a long time, while you don’t yet know exactly what has happened.”

Mother and daughter tried to distract one another while Jonas Vingegaard was being treated after breaking his collarbone at a roundabout in France. “It has been a season of both great sadness and enormous pride,” Trine said. “Sadness because he had to leave the Tour, but pride because he won the Giro and all the other races he took part in.”

Ahead of his Giro-Tour double, Vingegaard won both Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya, results that already suggested he had returned to exceptional form. “It has been a fantastic season,” his wife therefore concluded. “Whether he races again this season mainly depends on Jonas and Visma | Lease a Bike. The question is what he can still handle mentally.”

According to Trine, competing in two Grand Tours during the same season placed a major physical and mental strain on Vingegaard. “The entire season has clearly demanded an incredible amount from him,” she said. “He is constantly in the spotlight, but because he is an introvert, that costs him a great deal of energy. Racing two Grand Tours is an enormous achievement for him, because all those days of racing also mean spending so much time away from home.”

It is widely known that Vingegaard is happiest at home, making it entirely possible that the Dane will spend the remainder of 2026 with his family. “I would completely understand it if he decided that he didn’t want to race again this season,” Trine continued. “But I don’t know which races would make the most sense at the moment, or how quickly he will recover from his broken collarbone.”

Vingegaard had not returned to his bike at the time of the interview, although several races remaining on the calendar should theoretically suit him. The World Championships in Canada in September and the Tour of Lombardy in October are among the possibilities. Vingegaard has often avoided one-day races during his career, however, particularly after his disappointing experience at the 2025 European Championships.